More than finding cost efficiencies with cloud, government has realized its adoption is critical to business continuity. With mandatory telework as a result of COVID-19, organizations that have been proactive in their move to cloud found themselves able to quickly adapt and continue business as usual in very unusual times. Organizations that did not prioritize cloud found themselves scrambling to give employees access to the technology they needed to do their work.
Luckily, policies including the Cloud Smart mandate helped put more people in the first category than the second. A study completed in March (before pandemic telework began) found that 71% of federal respondents agreed that Cloud Smart was driving cloud adoption. In addition to Cloud Smart, the FedRAMP program also helped drive cloud adoption leading up to and during the pandemic. In 2020 alone FedRAMP added 200 authorized products and are on track to authorize over 60 cloud service offerings. The program has also achieved over 1,850 reuses of cloud products.